Boise State football moves into new facility; TE out with injury; WR signee gone

LAS VEGAS — The Boise State football coaches are working out of the new Bleymaier Football Center. Players will move in when they report for fall camp Aug. 4.

Camp begins Aug. 5.

“It’s going to be spectacular,” coach Chris Petersen said Monday at Mountain West media days. “We might be six months, eight months, from really getting it totally decorated. A huge part of the graphics package is coming in the next month or two. When they get the graphics all over it, it’s going to be really something special.”

Quarterback Joe Southwick said the building is impressive, but he had a message for his teammates and the players who are drawn to Boise State by the fancy new digs.

“It can’t make us soft,” he said. “It can’t change our culture. Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be great having nice, top of the line stuff. We understand what a great recruiting tool (the football facility and new video board) are going top be. Just from a recruiting standpoint, they change the game for Boise State. At the same time, it can’t change our culture.”

The current players, Petersen said, are reaping the benefits of their predecessors’ accomplishments.

“We won a lot of games in that old facility,” he said. “The new facility is about one thing. It’s about recruiting. It’s not going to play a game for us. … Those (current players) didn’t build that building. All the players before in those old meeting rooms under the bleachers, they built that. To me, it’s a tribute to all of those guys that all of us get to use it.”

Other notes from Petersen:

— The Broncos have “parted ways” with wide receiver recruit Kendal Keys. He has been released from his scholarship commitment, which means he’s eligible to play right away somewhere else.

— On the new high-definition video board: “It all matters (in recruiting). I think the fans are going to be the ones who appreciate it more than anything.”

— Petersen is concerned about the potential for ejections under the new targeting rules (more on this in tomorrow’s paper). The Broncos’ defensive coaches met with members of the Snake River rugby team to discuss tackling techniques. “They tackle different than we do,” Petersen said. “They have to. They don’t have the head gear. They have to be safer. … Wrapping up is a big difference. They wrap everything. They don’t get their head involved.”

— On the defensive line: “Big concern, absolutely. Every football team has areas where you never have enough depth and that’s one of them.” He said it’s undetermined whether junior Tyler Horn will play end, his original position, or tackle, where he was set to play before starting end Sam Ukwuachu was dismissed from the team.

Fresno State senior quarterback Derek Carr, the reigning and preseason Offensive Player of the Year, entertained the media during his session with print reporters Monday at Mountain West media days. Here are some highlights:

— On his decision to return for his senior season: “Some people close to me thought it would be a hard choice because I came here to win a conference title and we got a share of that last year. A lot of people thought, ‘He’s going to leave,’ especially some of my family members. I think I kind of surprised them. When you’ve got teammates like this, it makes it hard to not try to come back and do it again.”

— On playing with a sports hernia last year, which he kept secret even from many of his teammates before having surgery in January: “The bottom of an ab ripped off in training camp. I played all year with it. There was a stress deal on the bone also. Never in my mind did I think I was going to sit out and get the surgery and leave my teammates out to dry. It sucked. It hurt to sneeze, let alone play football. … There were a lot of my teammates that didn’t know. The coaches knew. There were things at practice that we had to modify. I couldn’t roll out. We tried to hide it the best we could. We couldn’t do the zone read, which is big in our offense. … It was a fun year, but at the same time it was a hard year.”

— On whether season-ending surgery was an option: “To me, no. It was a given option to me, but it was never an option to me to take. My team means too much to me.”

— On how his game will change this year, being healthy: “I can run. I can get out of the way of some pressure when teams blitz us. Me being able to run will force defenses to play different coverages. If I can run, there probably will not be a lot of man coverage going on.”

— On having a conference title game: “We loe that we don’t have to share. Every player probably feels that way.”

— On whether the Boise State flag will return to his wall now that the teams will meet again in 2013: “I don’t know what my dog did with it or else I’d put it back up. Just kidding. I felt like it was kind of like a distraction to my teammates. I never want the focus on me for any reason. Somehow my dog got it down. Of course, he cuddled with it.”

— On getting another shot at the Broncos: “I’m so happy it’s not the end. I really do want to root for Boise when my career is done because I love coach (Chris) Petersen so much. If we didn’t beat them, I don’t know if I could do that. … They’re so competitive and it’s so fun to play them. They talk a lot of trash, which makes it better, because I do, too. … In Boise, the fans are always so nice to me so it’s so hard to hate them. They say, ‘Great job.’ It’s, ‘OK, you just beat us, but thanks.’ It’s ruthless other places. It gets pretty bad.”

— He is expecting the birth of a son — Dallas Mason Carr — any time. He married his wife, Heather, on June 29, 2012. “Hopefully,” he said, “I get back (to Fresno) in time.”

— On competing with other QBs in the Mountain West: “I don’t just want to be the best in our conference. I want to be the best in the nation. That’s my competitive drive. It will never change, no matter how many people tell me I’m crazy. A lot of people told me I’d never start as a sophomore. … I’m going to go out and try to outwork (other quarterbacks). That’s all I can do. The rest will take care of itself. I cant just control my effort.”

— On Mountain West divisions: “I love how Boise’s on the other side so we can meet them at the end. That’s my favorite part about it. Those guys up there, if we could play them in the championship game, that would mean everything to me. But there are a lot of teams thinking the same thing.”